


Loose Ends

by fadeverb



Series: Leo [8]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:13:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean and Leo have a little chat about how everything's going lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loose Ends

### In Which, With All The Humans On Earth, You'd Think I Could Deal With Them Instead Of Angels For Once, Right?

Sean has a gun pressed up against my chest, not my head, which means he probably doesn't want to kill me. A chest wound's unlikely to send me into Trauma immediately. "Ow," I say. Asphalt never provides a comfortable surface to fall on. More so with someone on top of me. I suppose I should be grateful that he hasn't started punching. "Was that necessary?"

"It seemed appropriate." He still looks the disaffected college student, from the stupid facial hair to the battered sneakers. The voice is light, the expression amused, but I don't trust either. It's not that he isn't serious, only that he wants me to believe he isn't. "You're on the ground, so you're not going anywhere."

I let my head drop back and stare up at the sky. I can't see anything but street lights and the distant blinking light of a red-eye flight taking off. "You have a gun, and you can beat me up blindfolded. Like I would try running if you decided to show up?"

"You have before," Sean replies. Okay, so he has a point. "And you have this nasty habit of resonating weapons into pieces before anyone can use them."

"It's an effective technique in combat! What else am I suppose to do, dodge bullets?" I get the feeling he's annoyed that I'm not looking him in the eyes, which is all the more reason to keep staring up at the sky. "Not my fault if people keep neglecting to make their favorite weapons unbreakable, if they want to keep said weapons so badly."

He pokes me in the nose with the gun. "Are you drunk? You smell like it."

I push away the gun, and still won't look at him. "Maybe a little. Do you want to get off me so that we can have this talk like two reasonable adults, or should we continue to indulge in your juvenile power plays from down here?"

I can practically hear the Mercurian rolling his eyes. "If you can stand up straight." He rocks back to onto his feet in one motion, and offers me a hand up. Show-off. He's already had a chance to resonate me up close and personal from when he knocked me down, so I take the offered hand. He was expecting me to refuse as a point of pride. It's useful to throw angels a little off-guard.

Once I'm standing, Sean lets go of my wrist, and says, "You've been hard to track down."

"Is that so?" I find a wall to slouch against. It smells like the alleys behind bars usually do, but it's not like this jacket will hold out much longer anyway.

"I'm not in the mood for games," Sean says. The Mercurian has a sense of humor, and a tendency to shred demons who get in his way. "An entire building went up in flames, and you know the one I'm talking about. I thought you'd given up on the fire-starting?"

"I didn't start that fire." He doesn't look like he believes me. "Okay, I asked someone else to do it, but I didn't start it _personally_." I need another beer, and fewer angels. "I can only take so many people throwing a Song at some blueprints I wrote up and showing up on my doorstep a few days later before it gets old."

"See, when you disappeared to the Marches, I could take a hint," Sean say. He stands in front of me, gun dangling from one hand. Apparently I'm not enough of a threat to require constant aiming. He still looks too young to buy alcohol. "You didn't want to take any more jobs, but you were willing to get out of the way. Fine. But now you're back on the corporeal, and making a pointed gesture about not wanting anyone to come looking. Guess what? I've come looking to find out why."

"It wasn't that pointed a gesture," I say.

"You couldn't just destroy those particular blueprints?"

"I needed to be sure." My shoulders are starting to hunch as I feel more defensive. "Look, I hired an Impudite for the job so it wouldn't get messy. Take that for what it's worth. You can't find some other demon to bother?"

"You're a demon on Earth," Sean says, and for reasons I cannot comprehend he almost sounds apologetic. "You don't get a free pass for services rendered in the past."

I still have no beer. And a Mercurian with a gun watching me. "What do you want?"

"Answers."

"To all sorts of awkward questions, right?" I sigh. "Fine. Ask your questions, I'll give you what answers I can without putting myself in immediate mortal danger for telling you. And in return, you tell me how you tracked me down. Fair enough?"

Sean mulls this one over. "Deal."

"But we're going back inside where they serve beer. Because I'm going to need a few."

His eyes narrow for an instant. "You're buying."

"Whatever." I have the cash.

When we step back inside, my partner catches my eye from across the bar, a brief flicker of "Need help?" I shake my head, and he goes back to chatting up the blonde woman who can't decide yet if she finds him attractive. Sean follows the gesture, if not fast enough to see who I was looking at.

He keeps quiet until we're sitting at a booth, mug in front of each of us. He has a Role over 21, or at least a driver's license proclaiming him as such, though the waiter gave it a thorough examination before passing us the beer. "So who was that?" he asks, while I drop more alcohol into my system.

"That's your first question?"

Sean hesitates, then shakes his head. "No. Let's start at the beginning. Why did you come back from the Marches?"

I knew this question was coming. "A Seraph asked me to."

"It has to be more complicated than that."

"Isn't it always?" I pull my beer up for a long slurp, trying to pull myself together. It's been a bad month--okay, a bad decade--and I'm not at my best when dealing with angels, even sober. "Last I checked, your kind reads relationships and social situations, right?"

"More or less. You tend to view your relationship to angels in the _oddest_ ways..." Sean pauses, going over whatever information he's scraped off me tonight. It doesn't bother me so much that Seraphim can tell when you're speaking the truth or not--a clever person can do as much--but half the angelic resonances creep me out, digging down into my head. Especially when they come up with results I'm not sure I could articulate myself. "The Seraph of Trade? But that relationship isn't close enough to justify talking you back down to Earth."

"He just brought the message." I find I'm not in the mood for more alcohol in my system. "You never got an introduction to my ex, did you? Nik did, and that turned out about as well as one would expect when a Laurentine meets a Baalite." I grin at the Mercurian, who's trying not to look confused. "Okay, bear with me, here. I'm not in a linear mood, but for the sake of getting you out of my face sooner, I'll try to put it in small words and simple sentences. Used to have this thing with a Balseraph of the War, Regan. She's...well. Balseraph. Resents anything that takes attention away from her, possessive of her toys. So when she wanted to get my attention, she figured the best way to do it was to steal _my_ toys. Following?"

He is, now, and doesn't like it. "That human kid you kidnapped."

"Kidnapped? Is that how Judgment put it down on their reports? Nah, I got her away from a Djinn after things went explosive. She's a good kid, if prone to destructive behavior. Better than self-destructive behavior, right?"

Sean presses two fingers to his forehead. I'd offer him a painkiller if I had any on me. "So your, um, ex-girlfriend takes the kid you'd acquired, and let me say that the thought of you involved in parenting some human child is going to _haunt_ me for decades to come, the Seraph of Trade comes to--wait, where does the Seraph come into this? Did she mail him a postcard ransom note?"

"No, the Flowers Tether contacted him, and asked him to find me. Or maybe he took it on himself to find me, I was never clear on that point. Good decision on whoever's part it was, if damned inconvenient to me. You don't ask Flowers to go do an assault on the War."

"Where does _Flowers_ come into this?" 

I'm enjoying this, more than I should be. No, wait, exactly as much as I should be. After everything Sean's put me through before, it's only fair that I get a chance to break his mind once. "Look, I obviously didn't have the kid with me in the Marches. I left her someplace I figured she'd be safe."

"...with Flowers."

"Yes." I smirk at him across the table. "You know, if you keep getting hung up on the details, this is going to take forever."

"You...walked up to a Servitor of Flowers and asked them to hold onto a kid for you?"

"Pretty much."

"Why Flowers?"

"I wanted to be able to walk away again. Who do you think I should have asked, Judgment?"

"If you'd left her with Trade, they could have _shot_ anyone who came to steal the kid."

"I did leave her with Trade, and they handed her over to Flowers. Live and learn." I shrug at him, pick up my beer for the fourth time in as many minutes. If I get much more drunk, I'm going to start saying things I shouldn't, instead of simply being chattier than I ought. "So that's why I dropped back down out of the Marches. What's your next question?"

Sean pulls himself together from all sorts of objections he no doubt wants to make, and shows off a measure of that self-control he's supposed to have. "Why stay, rather than heading back to the Marches? We probably wouldn't have noticed a brief trip to the corporeal."

I'm inclined to believe he's lying on that last point. "Had to do something with the kid, and I wasn't about to give her back to Flowers after they'd botched the job. Trade would've sent her there if I left her with the Seraph. It took a while to work something out."

"You could have--"

"Contacted you? Do I look like an idiot? No, don't answer that one." I need another prop to work with here, because I'm tired of turning my mug of beer around without drinking it. "I'm not so stupid as to hand you a new hold on me."

"Not everyone views humans as bargaining chips, Leo." Sean looks offended. Good. "We could have taken care of the kid."

"And played up the connection to me for all it was worth. You may be a Mercurian, but your Superior isn't. Just try to convince me that War's above manipulating a few humans for whatever you feel like the greater good is this decade."

"You're trying to take the moral high ground here?" Oh, good, an edge to his voice that suggests I'm pushing further than I should. I wonder if he'll try to start something in public, especially knowing I have a partner in the room.

"I've killed people on occasion, but I don't try to tell anyone it's somehow righteous for _these_ humans to die because of my higher goals, whereas killing those _other_ humans over there is bad and wrong." I shouldn't be making snide comments about War in front of a Servitor of such. That won't stop me. But it's nice to be self-aware about why I'm courting a smiting. "If someone dies from my doing, it's because I'm getting a job done. I don't get the pretty excuses about how they deserved whatever happened to them. And civilians who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's just their bad luck, isn't it?"

"Don't presume that you know anything about War," Sean says, so quietly that even through this much alcohol I know it's time to shut up.

"I don't," I say. "I don't know a damned thing about it except what I've seen from Earth, but it's enough to tell me that while dropping a kid in your hands might have been good for your goals, it wasn't for mine."

A breath, and then the Mercurian relaxes, just enough that I can see one hand unclench and his shoulders relax. Moving on past subjects that it'll do neither of us any favors to discuss here and now. "So there you were, stuck on the corporeal plane with a dependent who needed protection..."

"I ran into someone."

Sean waits for me to continue, finally starting to look impatient around the fourth time I've picked up my mug and set it down again without taking a drink. "Someone?"

"Mmhm."

"Care to elaborate?"

Not really. But this isn't one of those questions where answering it would get me killed--well, not beyond the part that talking to a Mercurian is risky on principle--so I did agree to answer it. "Remember that bright idea you had back when I was doing jobs for you, about how it'd be easy to imply an affiliation, so people wouldn't wonder why a Renegade would be up to so much mischief?"

Sean nods, but doesn't follow to the conclusion. I need to remember that while he's probably as smart as me, he spent his formative years learning leadership or tactics or other useless War skills like that, rather than how to fill in conversational gaps. "Anyway," I say, "it turns out enough people heard that cover story that the news got back to interested parties. The kind who don't appreciate implied name-dropping."

Sean blinks at me. And then finally gets it. I could enjoy the dawning horror on his face if it weren't the result of something that happened to me. "Oh. Fuck."

"Succinct as always, Sean." This time I do drink my beer. It's gotten warm in this muggy bar, my own fault for poking at it without drinking it for so long. "Next question?"

"You're working for Theft now?"

"Were you not listening? I just answered that one." Next time my partner suggests we go out drinking, I get to pick the bar. This is the best beer they have to offer, and it's nothing to write home about.

Sean sighs, and flops back in his seat. "Can't leave you alone for a minute, can we? For a Renegade demon, you're not very good at staying out of trouble."

"I stayed out of trouble," I say, indignant. "It kept jumping me when my back was turned. As you know perfectly well, from the times when it was you. Besides. _Former_ Renegade demon. I'm back on the wagon, dissonance condition and all."

"And a partner, even. How lucky for you. Or does your Prince not trust you?"

I roll my eyes. "I'm on Prince number three. Would _you_ trust me?"

"Probably not." The Mercurian gives me a thoughtful glance. "Lucky for you that you're useful enough that he's done that rather than having you killed outright."

"Oh, I'm just _full_ of lucky breaks. Meeting you was exactly what I wanted out of this night."

"You realize you're still a security risk," Sean says mildly. "Especially with good reason to offer information up to your Prince."

"All my information's a year or more old. It's going to come as a shock to no one that your Archangel occasionally hires a demon to do some dirty work." There's a defensive, surly feeling building up inside of me, the type that'll result in saying the wrong thing. I channel it into the back of my head with other things I'm in denial about. "Besides, I'm still under contract for most of what I've done for you. I'm not about to volunteer the information."

"Even if your Prince asks for it?"

"He knows I've done work for various Free Lilim before he took me in." Picked me up off the street is more like it. I'm the kid who got into the car with the stranger offering me candy, and I don't have the excuse of not knowing what would happen next. "Theft is on good terms with Freedom. I don't see him asking me for details on what I did under contract without a good reason, and I'm hoping he'll never have one."

"Not much to be confident in."

"Life is full of uncertainty. What's one more thing that might get me killed, compared to everything else out there?" 

"Well, when you put it _that_ way..." Sean looks amused, and I'm not sure why, but I'm sure that I don't like it. "So you're all hooked up with a real Heart and set of coworkers now. Why take out potential tracking routes? Aren't you more secure than before?"

"I'm working with _demons_. Of course I'm not more secure. Hitting Limbo is safer than going back to Hell if I lose this vessel, and I don't trust any of my coworkers to save my life unless I'm paying for the service ahead of time." I haven't answered his question yet, even if he might think I just did. And I did say I would answer these ones. No idea where I picked up this habit of keeping my promises, but I should get over it. "It...came up that I'd had old enemies track me down before. I was told to identify and remove the most obvious approaches for the tracking, so as not to have it interfere with work. Simple."

"Inconvenient."

"For you and me both. You'd think Theft would have more appreciation for subtlety."

"If I didn't know better, Leo, I'd think you didn't like your new job."

"Screw you, Sean."

"No thanks. I don't boink demons unless it's part of an assignment."

I blink at him. "Boink? _Boink_? Who uses words like that? Is it something they put in the water up in Heaven?"

"You really _are_ drunk." He's finished his beer, and now leans forward, elbows on the table and chin resting on clasped hands. "This is entertaining. Do you realize you didn't even give me a time limit on the question-asking? Or any bounds beyond answers that wouldn't get you killed? I should've brought a Seraph."

"It's so nice to know that someone is deriving enjoyment out of my pain."

"Are you calling me a sadist?"

"If the shoe fits..."

Sean grins at me. "Consider it payback for the trouble you've made for me before."

"You started it." Did I actually say that? It's more one of Katherine's lines than mine. Great. Now I _am_ depressed. I need to go blow something up until I feel better.

"Disappointing though this may be," Sean says, "I'm not running through these questions just to make you uncomfortable. Sure, it's a bonus, but it's not the point. If it makes you feel any better, killing your vessel isn't a viable way of plugging the security hole anymore, not if you'd come out of Trauma in Hell and pass on the information there. Fortunately for you, nothing you know is important enough that we feel obliged to lock you in a basement for a few years, either."

"What, no jumping straight to soul-death?"

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to rip Forces off someone who can barely get out of their vessel?" Sean waves the matter away. "Besides, if your Prince finds out how closely you've been dealing with us in the past--and about this conversation--he might do the job for us."

"You're just a bundle of cheer and good news, aren't you?"

"Friend of Man, not demons. I don't have to bring good news to anyone else." His gaze turns sharper. "You can still run."

"Oh, so we're finally at the obligatory offer to let me switch sides."

"It's not like you haven't ditched a Superior or two before," Sean says. I would like to hurt him, right now. I'm sober enough to realize that if I tried it I'd be the one ending up in pain and a pool of my own blood, so I settle for more beer. "Come on, you're a smart guy. You're wasted in your current job."

"Funny. That's what Regan told me before she got me transferred to the War." I wonder how badly I hurt her career, with what I did to her last attempt on me. Getting a thorough smackdown from one Renegade Calabite and friend from a fortified position can't look good on the resume. None of my business, but I do wonder, and in my more maudlin moments I even feel bad about it. "I have an employer. And, any offense entirely meant, there's nothing about yours that gives me reason to believe I'd prefer working for him than my current one."

"Who said you'd have to work for War? Heaven doesn't buy and sell its angels. If you'd prefer to work for another Archangel, it could be arranged. After extensive use of memory pearls. But arranged."

"Right. Thanks, but no thanks. I'm happy where I am."

"Could've fooled me."

I could claim that I'm in a bad mood because of having a Mercurian jump me behind the bar. But it wouldn't be the truth. "I'll be about this happy as long as I'm bound to a Superior, Sean. Changing which one won't make it any better, and giving a whole new set of people reason to want me dead won't help."

Sean's quiet for a moment, then says, "Your choice. But the offer's there."

"Pass it on to someone who'd appreciate it. Is it my chance to ask a question yet?"

"One more question," Sean says. The amusement has been filed away. I wonder if he's not more in control of his own reactions than I've given him credit for. After all, if it doesn't hurt his position to express surprise and confusion and anger, all the easier to make people believe you're showing every emotion that flits through your head. Something for me to think about more closely in the morning. "Where's the kid? Answering that one's not going to get you killed."

I swallow the rest of my beer, slam the mug on the tabletop. "You want an honest answer to that one? Fine. I don't know. I could point you at a few people who do, but I don't, and I intend to leave it that way."

"Why?" Under all that War, he's still a Mercurian, and unless he's a damn good actor I'd say he's not happy to hear this.

"That's two questions. You said one more."

"It's a follow-up question."

"Still a second question."

"I _could_ shoot you, you know. I don't have a Role to watch, I can probably take your partner if he interferes, and I want an answer on this one."

"So we're back to the threats of violence?"

"Not having a Seraph of Trade on hand, it's what I have available to me for the purpose at hand." Light voice, not that it fools me for an instant. "What did you do with her?"

"Tagging around after a pair of Magpies wasn't about to get her an education. So I dropped her off somewhere she would." It's not fair that he can make me think about the parts of my life I've stuck in boxes in the back of my head. What's the use of being a demon if I can't indulge in self-centered denial? I need a Balseraph around to help me not care about these things. Can't imagine wanting to be an angel, not if they have to do the right thing every single time. I can deal with the problems other people have caused me. Dealing with the ones I've caused myself is harder. "Told my partner I made a deal with a Lilim who needed cover for a new Role, some kid who could keep her mouth shut about weirdness."

"But that's not what happened." Sean picks up a salted peanut from the bowl in the center of the table. Such a careful tone, and so studiously unconcerned. I wonder what would happen if I lied and said that was it. Probably some combination of bodily harm to me and a rescue mission for Katherine. Not worth the brief amusement it would bring, and I'm not sure I'd even find it that funny. Some things don't bear joking about. 

"Of course not. I liked the kid. I dropped her off at a Judgment Tether."

Watching Sean nearly choke on a peanut, on the other hand, is _hilarious_.

The coughing finally dies down. "Judgment? _Judgment_?"

"What? They're better at protecting things than Flowers, likely to give her a decent education that isn't full of hippy-dippy peace and love crap, and best of all, you're not on polite speaking terms with them, so I figured she wouldn't be handed over to War on my account. They might have given her back to Flowers, but I gave it my best shot."

"You can't pass children around like packages, Leo." Oh, great, we're back to indignanation. "She's not a puppy."

"Tell me about it. It's easier to find good homes for dogs than children. Plus, it's easier to teach the dogs to sit and stay."

Sean shakes his head. "You're a weird one, Leo."

"Blame Belial. He's the one who stuck my Forces together."

"And somehow ended up with a Calabite who, given the opportunity, keeps passing small children in need of guardians back to _angels_. You don't think that says anything about you?"

"Considering how much damage she'll wreak wherever Judgment leaves her, I wouldn't call it a selfless decision on my part. Maybe I just like the image of a bunch of Mercurians of Judgment running after a kid who's trying to burn down the Tether." I don't think Katherine took the news well when she found out I'd abandoned her in their care, and wasn't using her as a brief diversion like I claimed when I sent her in with the note. Which is why I made sure to be out of the state before she'd figure it out.

"Sounds more like an excuse than an explanation, to me."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." I check my watch. "So are you going to answer the one simple question I asked of you now, or harass me more?"

Sean smiles. I don't like that at all. "How I found you? Simple. My little sister has been doing practice resonating down on Earth, trying to get the hang of corporeal social situations. She happened to hit someone where I showed up in the web of associations, and sent me a message. Took me about three hours from when I showed up in the neighborhood to track you down. Would've been longer if you weren't in bars. Those are easy to scan."

"So you're telling me that it was coincidence."

"Pretty much. Does that bother you?"

"No, no. It's sort of reassuring. Can't guard against that. If it were something you could replicate easily, then I'd be worried." I wonder if that Cherub of Judgment is still attuned, wherever she is now. Presumably out of Trauma long ago, but she's never shown up to have a pointy-ended chat with me.

"That's everything, then," Sean says. He pushes his chair back, and hesitates there. "You do realize that if we meet again--"

"You'll have to kill me on general principle, like every other angel out there? Tell me something I don't know."

Sean stands up. "Your choice," he says, and I think it's more to himself than to me. "Good luck. You have my phone number if you ever change your mind."

"Don't count on it." I watch him move through the room until the door shuts behind him, then turn back to my beer, which is still empty. _Now_ it's time to get drunk.

And here's my partner at the table, holding two foamy mugs. He sits down across from me, smiles. "You look like you could use a drink."

"And then some." Zhune looks the way I wish I did: charming, roguish, neatly dressed. I wonder what it would take to earn a new vessel from my Prince. I've already sold my soul. Can only go downhill from there. "What about the person you were chatting up?"

Zhune shrugs, and pushes a mug of beer towards me. "Not important. One monkey or another's much the same, when they're not useful for a job."

This beer's cold, bitter, exactly what I need right now. I wonder if I have time to hit falling-down drunk before last call, if my partner keeps grabbing the drinks for me. I try not to hunch over my beer when I drink. It's undignified, and Djinnish in appearance.

Zhune, who has an excuse for Djinnish behavior, waits until I'm halfway through my beer before he prompts gently, "What about the person you were chatting up? Thought I might have to step in and lend you a hand, at one point."

"Someone I used to work with," I say. "He's annoyed about my change in employers. Fortunately, he's not immune to logic, so I talked him out of doing anything stupid." I wonder if I'd make a decent Seraph, with how much practice I have walking the line between truth and lies. It's a pity I wasn't made a Balseraph; there are so many problems in life I could have avoided if I had the resonance to make myself believe and feel what I wanted to.

"Think he's going to cause more trouble?"

"Maybe. But if so, I don't think it's going to be tonight. If you want to keep an eye out for him..."

"I'll do that." Zhune regards the rate at which my beer is disappearing. "Am I going to have to carry you back to the car?"

"Maybe?"

"Because you don't get to drive if you can't walk."

"Fair enough," I say, and drain my glass. "If I asked nicely, would you get me another one of these?"

"Sure." Zhune grabs the empty mug and walks off, turning his back to me. Why shouldn't he? He knows I'm not going anywhere without him.


End file.
